


Icarus and the Sun

by snickerdroodle



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, there’s a lot of extra steps but you know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 17:26:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30042171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snickerdroodle/pseuds/snickerdroodle
Summary: Oikawa liked to make up stories in his head when he was younger. Stories of meeting someone and falling in love. The type of passion that burned a hole in your stomach and made you so sick you couldn’t eat.But you grow up, and you learn things, and telling stories isn’t as fun anymore. Especially when you don’t have anyone to tell them to.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime & Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Icarus and the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Ah! Hello. I had this idea in my head and just wanted to get out as soon as possible. The chapters will alternate (maybe not every chapter) between the present and the past. 
> 
> Here’s a playlist I made and plan to update as i put up the chapters: 
> 
> [Icarus and the Sun Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5VQSDVGo1isIcfBpy0i0Vf?si=GAnkXDf9SzOVqhk8HTHAbQ)
> 
> That’s all you really need to know, I hope you enjoy :)

Oikawa: 23

“So I have this _friend_...who likes this guy, right?” The second Atsumu starts talking, Suga and Oikawa let out a collective sigh. Atsumu’s strange need to justify getting advice by pretending he was getting it for someone else was a habit beyond Oikawa’s scope of understanding.

“Who is the guy your friend likes?” Suga asks softly. He’s currently sitting behind Oikawa on the couch, brushing Oikawa’s hair back while Oikawa hums in contentment, his head resting on Suga’s thigh. 

Atsumu plays with his fingers as he looks at his bare feet. “He uh, he works at a–” 

“He _works_?” Oikawa can’t help the surprise that comes through in his tone. “Like...like at a job?”

Atsumu flushes deeply, switching between wringing his fingers and playing with his hair. “He met the guy at a photography gallery.” 

Oikawa visibly relaxes. “Oh, so he was having a gallery for his pictures?”

Atsumu wet his lips and shakes his head. “No, he was...he works at the bookstore across the street from the gallery.” 

An audible silence hangs in the air for a few seconds before Suga jumps in to save Atsumu’s pride. He’s much better than Oikawa, who is about two seconds away from laughing in his friend's face. 

“Oh! Books are nice! Oikawa loves books!” Suga says cheerily. 

Oikawa offers a tight smile, smiling wider when he feels Suga tug on his hair. “Right! I used to read a lot growing up. I don’t think it’s…..I mean. As long as you’re happy, I suppose.” Oikawa ends his sentence with a cough that badly covers up a laugh. 

Suga sighs, letting go of Oikawa’s hair and looking at Atsumu. “Listen, Atsumu. You know the risks of dating someone who’s not in our social circle. I don’t have to explain them to you.” 

“Yeah.” Oikawa nods, trying to offer support. “There’s nothing wrong with thinking a poor person is attractive.” 

Oikawa hears a strangled sound behind him, which is Suga trying to hold back a laugh. Atsumu throws the nearest thing–a pillow–at both of them.

“You’re both useless. I knew I shouldn’t ask _you_ two of all people for relationship advice.” Atsumu mutters, reaching for one the margaritas sitting on the end table. “Suga hasn’t had a boyfriend since middle school and Oikawa…..” Atsumu trails off.

Oikawa waves his hand dismissively. “We don’t have to get into that mess. Especially since it’s so far in the past. I mean, I haven’t even heard from-” 

The door to the spa treatment room opens and the three boys turn to see a man standing in the doorway, a book tucked under his arm. 

Oikawa feels his mouth go dry. “Hajime?” 

“No more Iwa-chan?” Iwaizumi offers a soft smile, taking a few steps forward. “Your dad didn’t mention you being home.” 

Not even a hello. “Well. This is _my_ house.” 

Iwaizumi nods slowly. “Right I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just...surprised. To see you again. So soon.” 

Oikawa is suddenly self conscious like he’s in high school all over again. Thinking about the face mask he’s wearing and the way his hair is sticking up from Suga brushing it. Oikawa huffs out a breath while staring at Iwaizumi. 

“Five years isn’t soon.” Oikawa says it with a faux sense of bravado. With humor that five years ago Iwaizumi would have been able to see through. Maybe he still could. 

“I meant so soon after I got back.” Iwaizumi looks behind him, as if considering leaving. “I’m sorry if I interrupted something.” 

“You didn’t!” Atsumu is quick to answer before Oikawa can. “Come in. Close the door behind you.” He throws Oikawa a devilish smile as Iwaizumi reluctantly closes the door behind him. 

“Right. Hey, Atsumu. Your hair is different.” Iwaizumi says, sitting in a chair across from Suga and Oikawa, next to Atsumu. 

Atsumu tugs as his locks and grins. “Yeah I dyed it a bit after you left. Koushi and Tooru helped out.” Atsumu sucks his teeth. “They did a...horrible job, the first time.”

“That was because Oikawa made him sit with the dye in his hair for way too long.” Suga mutters.

Oikawa sits up straighter and makes a sound of protest. “His hair was _dark brown_. You literally need to sit with it for longer! The problem was Sugar buying dye that wouldn’t work.” 

“Don’t ‘Sugar’ me!” Suga scoffs. “He wanted PLATINUM BLONDE. Not PISS YELLOW.” 

“Oh fuck _off_!” Oikawa rolls his eyes, catching Iwaizumi’s gaze for long enough to see his lip quirk up into something close to a smile. “You can’t go from dark brown to platinum in one dye job. Everyone fucking knows that. That's what Kageyama-kun said when she was fixing that…..disaster on his head.” 

Atsumu seems stressed out just thinking about that day. The three of them had walked into Miwa Kageyama’s salon, begging her for a walk-in even though they knew you had to book appointments months in advance. 

Atsumu turns to look at Iwaizumi and raises an eyebrow. “So. What were you up to in America?” 

“College.” Iwaizumi says simply. “And then I spent a year...traveling.”

“Avoiding coming back.” Oikawa supplies. His bitterness was starting to leak into his tone. But how could it not? 

“I wasn’t avoiding y–coming back. I was figuring stuff out. I never meant to–” Iwaizumi stops himself. “I missed you guys.” 

Suga squeezes Oikawa’s shoulder in warning and Oikawa backs off for the moment being. 

“How was that girlfriend you had?” Suga asks.

Iwaizumi shrugs, eyeing the tray of margaritas. “We broke up a while ago.” 

Suga makes a sound of disappointment, but Oikawa feels his chest swell. 

Atsumu shakes his head sadly, taking a long sip from his margarita. “She found out you were gay?”

“I’m not really gay.”

“Still?” Oikawa finds himself speaking before he can think.

Iwaizumi turns to look at him in surprise for a few seconds before his eyebrows knit together and he starts laughing. It’s the exact same laugh he remembers. A sound that was frozen in time was finally being thawed, and despite himself, Oikawa can’t help but laugh too. 

“I didn’t–stop laughing!–I just mean you lived in California for 4 years and you come back still….straight?” Oikawa can't stop the disbelief in his voice. 

“I mean, I don’t know. It’s confusing.” Iwaizumi looks much more relaxed, reaching over for the margarita he’d been staring at since he entered. The book tucked under his arms falls, and Oikawa lets out a shaking breath as he stares at the cover.

Oikawa reaches over to take the book, opening it to the first page and sighing deeply as he sees his own swirling handwriting in it. 

_i know you hate these sort of books, but i swear you’ll like this one. i’m a lot like dorian, i think_

_-Tooru._

The heart next to his name was smudged, Oikawa deciding last minute that maybe it was a bit _much_. That Iwaizumi would take it the wrong way. Or rather, that he would take the right way. 

Oikawa looks up at Iwaizumi and smiles softly. “You liked it?” Oikawa knows the answer. The pages have the type of wear they get when you turn them over and over. There were creases where Iwaizumi had dog-eared parts of the book, little annotations written in frantic black pen. 

Oikawa doesn’t want to give the book back. He wants to keep it. The book is both of them. It’s been so long since he had any evidence of the both of them. 

“Yeah, I loved it. Just like you said I would.” 

Oikawa reluctantly hands the book back. “You should have called to tell me that.” 

“I know.” Iwaizumi‘s voice is almost a whisper, as if he doesn’t want anyone else to hear what he’s saying. Like it’s just for Oikawa. “But I think about you every time I read it. Every word. I swear.” 

Oikawa feels a familiar sheepishness take him over, how he feels sometimes when he talks to Iwaizumi. It’s so humiliating how Iwaizumi manages to shut Oikawa’s brain down without even trying. 

A tangible silence hangs in the air, and Oikawa exhales deeply, giving Iwaizumi a wry smile. “Who taught you how to say things like that?” 

Iwaizumi tilts his head to the side. “You.”

“I bet the California girls ate it up.” Oikawa says sarcastically. 

Iwaizumi shrugs, flashing Oikawa a genuine smile. “What can I say?” 

“Speaking of California,” Atsumu’s voice cuts through the air, and it’s clear that the margarita has done its job, sitting back on the tray empty. “You would date a poor person right?”

“What does that have to do with California?” Oikawa can hear the stress in Suga’s voice. “Also why would you ask Iwaizumi that?”

Iwaizumi takes a sip out of his margarita and shakes his head. “You know I don’t come from money like you guys, but I think that, Atsumu, if you want to be with someone who’s not the same as you, that’s very brave.” 

Oikawa snorts. “He works at a bookstore. How...quaint.” 

Iwaizumi looks like he’s about to shoot Oikawa a warning glare but decides against it. Like it’s not his place to scold Oikawa anymore. 

“We should stake it out. See what he’s like.” Suga offered. “We could wear disguises.”

“He doesn’t know who we are, why would we need to wear disguises?” Oikawa asks. “Also we’re too old to be doing shit like that now.” 

“Don’t try and seem all mature for _Iwa-chan_.” Suga’s teasing tone makes Oikawa’s face go red hot. 

“I wasn’t trying to be all mature. You know, I have things to do. Business deals to make. Empires to crumble.” Oikawa crosses his arms. “I don’t have time for a stupid highschool stalking session.”

______________

“That’s him! That’s him!” Atsumu hisses, pointing at a man locking up his motorcycle in front the store. “God, he’s so hot.”

Oikawa leans back in the seat of his car, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. “I dunno, ‘Tsumu. He seems like trouble to me. No one with a regard for life uses a motorcycle.”

“I have a motorcycle.” Iwaizumi mutters from the backseat, and Oikawa does his best to ignore him. 

Oikawa opens the door, closing it and leaning against the door. “I’m gonna go in. Get a feel for him.”

“Oikawa is the last person we should send in to do that.” Atsumu’s voice is still shrill, even though it’s muffled by the closed doors. “Iwaizumi go with him.”

“I can go by myself.” Oikawa protests. “I don’t need to be babysat.” 

The door opens regardless, and Iwaizumi pulls himself out of the car. Suga and Atsumu are both sitting in the car, giving Oikawa a thumbs up and encouraging smiles. 

After crossing the street, Oikawa tugs open the door to the bookstore, the ring of the bells alerting everyone inside to his presence. 

And Iwaizumi’s too, he supposes. 

“Hey, do you think we could get some time to talk? The two of us?” Iwaizumi’s question makes Oikawa stop in his tracks, Iwaizumi bumping into his back. 

“Talk about what?” Maybe Oikawa can play stupid.

“Don’t play stupid, Oikawa.” 

Or maybe not. 

Oikawa spares a glance to the front desk, where the man of the hour is messing around with an old record player, and a cat is sunbathing by the window. Oikawa would have loved this place as a kid. 

His feet automatically make their way to the romance section, and he finds himself staring at the rows of books with an odd sense of nostalgia. 

“do you still read them?” Iwaizumi’s question startles Oikawa, he didn’t notice the other boy following him, 

“No, I do coke now.” Oikawa notes Iwaizumi’s expression and rolls his eyes. “That was a _joke_ , Iwaizumi.” 

“I can’t...I can’t tell anymore.” Something about that breaks Oikawa’s heart. Maybe it’s how quietly Iwaizumi says it, like it’s embarrassing. Like he expected to be gone for five years and come back to the same person he left. 

“I don’t read romance books anymore…it’s uh, how do I phrase this?” Oikawa isn’t looking at Iwaizumi, and Iwaizumi isn’t looking at Oikawa. Both of them are staring straight ahead. “It’s like showing a caged animal a nature documentary.” 

“It’s not some abstract made up thing.” Iwaizumi replies. “It’s not as unattainable as you’re acting like it is.” 

Oikawa shakes his head. “No. It’s not that. I know that love isn’t unattainable. I’ve been in love before. With someone who was in love with me. That’s the problem. I’ve been in love before and it…it wasn’t like the nature documentary.” 

“Oh.”

“It was underwhelming.” Oikawa finally turns to look at Iwaizumi, who’s already looking at him. “The excitement I experienced in high school has turned into frustration. The reality is disappointing.” Oikawa pulls a hardcover book off of the shelf and tucks it under his arm. “So I do coke now.” 

“It’s not fun anymore?” 

“It’s not fun anymore.” Oikawa says plainly. 

Oikawa walks over to the front of the store and places the book down, finally getting his first good look at the guy working there. He scans the book, a small smile on his face as the cat walks over to him and cuddles up to his side. 

“Sorry about him, I hope you’re not allergic.” The cashier says. 

“No. Cats just don’t like me.” Oikawa looks down at the cat, who stares right back up at him. “Very good judges of character.” 


End file.
